Dec 15 2006
Lugovoi Definitely Berezovsky Ally
I was going to add this in a long line of comments to answer someone’s question, and decided to make a post for everyone to find. Lugovoi was definitely an ally of Berezovsky’s – so the assassination theory seems a little more stretched than it was before. And it explains why Goldfarb first tried to divert suspicion from Lugovoi. Now that Lugovoi is a participating witness (prossibly under a plea agreement) Berezvosky’s mouth piece is having to change tactics. Looks like everyman is now out for themselves in a battle that could put someone away for life. I am wondering more and more whether the Litvinenko incident and the spat of killings is really the preparation for some kind of coup d’etat in Russia.
I knew that, enlightened.
On the other hand there are some horrendous Chechen terror acts – like the Moscow theater and that terrible school occupation. I don’t know what to say about the apartment bombings (seems inconceivable for the government to do it to me). I’d also say that dirty-bomb-in-the-park incident sounds like a set up. I don’t really know what all Sasha advocated, but I think there is a real threat that Russia is right to respond to.
Enlightened, you are a force of nature. Good work!
FWIW I haven’t seen Sue on this thread.
Oh my lord – I meant the great tip by MARIPOSA….sorry about that!
Tks, Jerry
Good night, happy start of Hanukkah.
Jerry..IIRC Chechnya won its independence..the brutal war was over..then came the bombings ..Putin won that election because people were afraid and then Russia struck again in Chechnya..The rest came after.
I think that there are a substantial number of those for independence who have nothing to do with the terrorists. Litvinenko turned in those who tried to get him to work with Chechens to arrange Putin’s assassination. Katyev did, too. (And I don’t think for a minute the Brits would have given either of them asylum or citizenship if there was any evidence they were involved in terrorism.)
Also, this is off the top of my head re. the theater siege, so the details may be slightly off, but —
Anna Politkovskaya claimed the FSB was also “in” on the Moscow theater incident in 2002.
She was called to the theater and took part in negotiations (because of her fair reporting in Chechnya). Later, walking through the dead in the theater as a witness, she could not locate the “Chechen leaders” of the siege — whom she had negotiated with — among the dead, in spite of what the FSB publicized in their own newspaper Izvestia later, that they were all killed.
Exiled Chechen leader Akhmed Zakayev was in London at the time, but accused by Moscow of planning the theater siege from afar — he is, after all, an actor and it was a theater — with little evidence offered, even in his extradition hearings.
Good night, Jerry, happy Hanukkah!
Ditto, Jerry.
Okay, before anyone gets too elated, one problem about Shebalin is this:
“he [Trepashkin] names a serving state security colonel as a key figure in the poisoning”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/wpoison10.xml
From what I can find, Shebalin is a retired colonel, and is not currently serving in the FSB. So… maybe this is a miss?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6184919.stm
a theory
As of March 2003 Shelabin was still with the FSB. http://www.gazeta.ru/2002/05/30/FSBinahurryt.shtml
**2002***
I re-read the Telegraph article and the corananet article, and I think Trepashkin means Shebalin, “the man in the mask”.
“Colonel Victor Shebalin (also the ‘man in the mask’ participant of the scandalous press-conference)”
http://coranet.radicalparty.org/pressreview/print.php?func=detail&par=11742
Tempester, interesting new BBC article. I was wondering when the info from Yuri Shvets would break.
Another clip from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/10/wpoison10.xml
Mr Trepashkin was present at Litvinenko’s press conference the year before, when he alleged that the security services had been running death squads to kill businessmen hostile to Russian government interests.
The claims, which enraged the Kremlin, led to sackings in the FSB and Litvinenko’s own brief detention before he fled abroad and eventually claimed asylum in Britain.
None of the masked fellow officers who appeared with him at the 1998 conference has ever been publicly identified. It remains unclear why, having apparently risked their lives and careers by siding with him with at the time, they might have later turned against him.
But Mr Trepashkin says the masked agent he has named is the only one still serving in the FSB, indicating someone who somehow still enjoys the confidence of the Kremlin.
Mr Trepashkin was answering questions passed to him by The Sunday Telegraph into EK-13, a low-security jail in Nizhny Tagil in the Middle Urals region, where he has a year still to serve. He now expects to be transferred to a tougher prison for speaking out, and fears being attacked or even killed in jail.
He is regarded by international human rights groups as a genuine political prisoner. Unlike some of the figures in the Litvinenko affair, he has no history of making wild or exaggerated claims.
***
So if Trepashkin is right about Shebalin, is Shebalin in this with Lugovoi and Kovtun?
there is a theme emerging of people who have ‘misbehaved’ but have been given qa second chance by the Kremlin. Kovtun was a deserter,
Lugovoi helped someone escape, shebalin was at the press conference
Maybe not. Maybe with Kovtun. Maybe he just timed it to coincide with their visit and deliberately “marked” them with traces of PO to create a trail to them. No?
There is going to be a demonstration in Moscow today led by Gary Kasparov – so it will be interesting to see how that goes.
I think democracy was a big pain for Putin, But he saw that in the US after 9/11 the government was able to introduce legislation that would effectively reduce certain freedoms, people accepted it by and large as a necesary evil. I think the apartment bombings were created for this purpose, also remember that the people who died at the moscow theatre, died of being poisoned by Gas!
My memory is hazy but I remember years ago when chechens took some russian hostages, the russians tried to rescue them by attacking the building with a helicopter gun ship. There were anectodal stories that the hostages and hostage takers all helped each other to escape.
The point being all these chechen ‘atrocities’ have at best been handled very badly – at worst- made into bigger events than they would have oterwise been
I think therefore there is a link to whether putin will stand down in 2008 or will he say that national security dictates the need for him to stay on?